Running Out of Time (13 page)

Jessie rested her aching head against the wall. Could she hold the news conference and then get on another bus before Mr. Neeley showed up? She felt too dizzy to make any plans. She wiped her tearstained face on her T-shirt sleeve.

"I'm too scared to do this," she whimpered. She closed her eyes. Unbidden, the image came to her of the night of Katie's birth. Jessie had only been seven then, but Ma had let Jessie help Mrs. Ruddle with the delivery. Pa said Jessie was too young for such a thing, but Ma said, "She's seen the horses

and cows and cats plenty of times. It's no different." Only, it had been different. At the end, Jessie was left holding clean, tiny Katie, wrapped in a warm blanket. And Katie had reached up and grabbed Jessie's braid, almost like she knew her already. Since then, Jessie had always secretly considered Katie her favorite of all her brothers and sisters—she thought if the cabin burned down and she could only save one person, it would be Katie.

If she'd risk going into a burning house, she had to risk a news conference. She didn't know what else to do.

Unsteadily, Jessie pulled herself to her feet. Trying not to think what would happen if the news conference failed, too, she opened the Yellow Pages book and found a listing for newspapers. There were lists of TV and radio stations, too. Jessie painfully cleared her throat, preparing to make herself sound older. She planned a speech an adult might say. Then she dialed the first number.

"There will be a news conference on the steps of the capitol building in a half hour," Jessie said into the phone.

"About what?"

Jessie thought for a minute. She didn't want to give too much away now—

"Terrible problems at Clifton Village," she said. "And an evil man who's planning a murder."

Jessie sat at the top of the tail steps to the capitol and rested her chin on her knees. She didn't know how long it would be before the news conference was supposed to start, because she didn't know what time she'd called all those newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations. She'd lost count of how many places she'd called—she'd used almost all her coins—but a couple of the newspapers had said, "We don't cover news conferences. We're just advertisers," and a couple of radio stations had said, "We don't do news. We've got an all-music format." Would anybody show up?

Maybe everybody had known she wasn't an adult. Maybe Jessie should figure out something else to try, to get help for Katie and the others. She didn't know what, though. Everything outside Clifton was too confusing.

Shivering despite the bright sunshine, Jessie reached into

her pack for the windbreaker jacket. But it wasn't there—she must have left it at Mr. Neeley's. She still had food in the pack, only a little mashed, and she hadn't eaten since the night before. But she wasn't hungry. The thought of hard bread or jerky made her throat close over. More than anything, she just wanted to close her eyes, go to sleep, and wake up safely tucked in her bed back in Clifton, with Ma hovering over her with hot soup and lemon tea for her sore throat.

Jessie closed her eyes, but opened them again quickly in case Mr. Neeley had somehow" found out where she was because of all her phone calls. She didn't want him sneaking up on her. But instead of Mr. Neeley or Ma's familiar face, Jessie saw two men walking up the steps with the strange boxes—cameras?—she'd seen from the bus, at the politician's news conference.

So someone believed there was a real news conference!

The men paused a few steps below Jessie. Another man and a woman joined them.

"Hey, Joe," one of the cameramen said to the third man. "Know anything about this ten-thirty news conference?"

"Just that we got a mysterious message. It sounded like a prank call, but after that weird announcement from Clifton Village, my editor wanted me to check it out."

Jessie started. What weird announcement from Clifton Village?

Another woman joined the group.

"Who's holding this news conference?"

The others shrugged.

"Nobody knows," one of the men said. "I'm sure it's not the Clifton Village PR people."

"They wouldn't talk to you either, huh?" one of the women said.

"Just one quote, over and over: 'All the information we wish to divulge is in the fax.' It makes no sense—why close a multimillion-dollar tourist attraction for no reason?" the man asked.

"You don't believe the excuse of 'an unexpected need for maintenance and upkeep'?"

Another man snorted. "No. That's why I have better things to do right now than stand around waiting for a news conference that's never going to happen. I bet the Clifton Village people called this just to throw us off. If someone isn't here in five minutes, I'm leaving."

"Fine, Bob," a woman said. "You leave. We'll get the story. Doesn't the threat of murder intrigue you?"

Jessie sat still, trying to make sense of everything. Was Clifton Village being closed? Did that mean the children with diphtheria would get treatment that wasn't "authentic"? Or—did it mean some had died? Jessie felt more confused and scared than ever. The reporters' talk buzzed in her ears. Nobody paid any attention to her. What if they ignored her when she started talking?

"I thought some legislator might have uncovered a scandal about Clifton Village," a woman said. "But even legislators are never this late."

"Hey—maybe this mysterious source was murdered," the man called Bob said. "In that case, it's the police reporter's story, not mine."

"Nice attitude," one of the women said.

About a dozen people stood in front of Jessie. No one else

seemed to be coming. Still, Jessie didn't move. The reporters fidgeted.

"Ann, what do you think? Back to the station? We could go tape that woman who collects refrigerator magnets," one of the men with the cameras asked.

"Wait until Bob's five minutes are up," a woman said.

"It's one minute now," Bob growled. "Hey, kid. Seen any legislators—fat guys in suits—talking about a news conference?"

Startled because he actually seemed to be talking to her, Jessie stood up.

"I called the news conference," she said softly. The reporters stared for a minute, then began to turn away. Jessie felt like crying.

"See, it is a hoax," Joe said. "Just a kid's prank."

"You can get in trouble for this kind of thing," Bob said. "We're busy people. We can't go running all over town for nothing—"

"No, wait," Jessie said. "Please. You have to help. My sister and a bunch^of other children are going to die if I don't get help, and Ma didn't tell me what else to do but call Mr. Neeley, and he didn't help. I heard him say he was going to kill me. And Ma said what he would do to help was call the board of health and a news conference, and I tried the board of health and that didn't work—"

The reporters turned back toward Jessie.

"Why don't you get this on camera, just in case," Ann said softly to one of the men with the strange boxes.

"Come on. It's just a kid," Joe said.

"We should at least hear what she has to say, don't you think?" someone else said.

"Slow down and tell us the whole story," another woman said gently. "Why don't you start by telling us your name."

"Jessie Keyser," Jessie said.

And then she told about the diphtheria, and how Ma had sent her out of Clifton to get help. She explained how Mr. Neeley had driven to Waverly and picked her up, and told her he was helping. Then she told how she'd overheard him on the phone and in the meeting with Mr. Clifton. She described her escape and the bus ride and her call to the board of health. When she finished, the reporters looked puzzled.

"Wasn't Isaac Neeley the crackpot who protested everything?" someone said. "Didn't he die—what, five, six years ago?"

"Yes, in a car accident. Would someone impersonate him?"

"Why? And why wouldn't they treat an epidemic? Clifton Village must be making a ton of money. What else do they want? What kind of research could they be doing?"

The reporters looked at Jessie like they expected her to answer the questions. She couldn't think of anything to say. The lights on the cameras blinded her.

"Isn't diphtheria kind of a nothing disease?" Joe said.

"Only because of modern medicine."

"I do think the girl believes she's telling the truth," someone whispered.

"Look, kid," Bob said, a bit more gently than before. "If this were true, it would be an incredible story. And we want to help you. But you can't substantiate any of your claims, or explain how this fits with Clifton Village closing down. We can't use vague allegations like this. Can't you tell us anything else?"

Sadly, Jessie shook her head.

"I don't even know why Ma thought a news conference would help."

"The idea," Ann said, "is that if lots of people know about the epidemic, Mr. Clifton and these other bad guys will be forced to let medical supplies in. If nobody knows about it, Mr. Clifton can get away with, well, murder."

"What is this—Journalistic Idealism 101?" Joe scoffed. "You know all you really care about is ratings. Isn't this sweeps week?"

Jessie looked from one reporter to another.

"Please," she said. "I know this all sounds strange. But can't you just take my word for it?"

The reporters whispered among themselves even more.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll let my editor decide."

"But which way are you going to try to persuade him?"

"Wait," said the woman who had asked Jessie to tell her story. "At least we can prove if she is or isn't from Clifton. I was there not too long ago and watched the school—can you recite the presidents and the states, or something like that?"

"Of course," Jessie said. She closed her eyes, pretending it was just Mr. Smythe ordering her to recite. "George Washington. Elected in 1789 and served two terms. Father of our country . . ."

When she'd finished with the presidents, she moved on to the states. For the first time in her life, she was grateful to Mr. Smythe for drilling her and her classmates so much that the words came automatically. She felt so strange she couldn't really think.

"—Michigan, the twenty-sixth state, 1837," Jessie finished, and opened her eyes.

The reporters were staring at her. She realized she was beginning to weave. She tried to stand up straight, but it took too much effort. She collapsed on the steps. One of the women bent down and felt Jessie's forehead.

"She's on fire!"

Jessie closed her eyes, and the rest of the reporters' words seemed to come at her from a great distance.

"What should we do? Call an ambulance?"

"She's got to go to the hospital."

"I hope you got that fall on camera."

And the last thing she heard, before losing consciousness entirely: "Well, Bob, if that's diphtheria, you've got your proof."

Lor a long time after that, even when Jessie was awake, I everything passed in a daze. She was vaguely aware of being in a bed, but she didn't know how she had gotten there. Soft hands tended her, sponged her forehead, and turned her on her side, but they weren't Ma's. At first, Jessie had trouble breathing, but then everything was easy. She would have felt totally peaceful, except, except—

"Katie?" she managed to croak once when she was being turned. "Katie okay?"

There was no answer. Jessie fell into troubled sleep and dreamed that Mr. Neeley and Ray and Tol were chasing her, brandishing giant phones the size of clubs. She woke up confused, but asked her question again. "Katie okay?" "Yes," a voice answered.

The next time Jessie woke, she remembered enough to ask more. "Others sick . . . Ma? Pa? Where—"

"Shh," a voice answered. "Just sleep."

And Jessie did sleep, for days and days, it seemed. She didn't know until later that her hospital room was filled with flowers from people who had read and heard about her—and even from some of the reporters who had been at her news conference. She didn't know until later that Katie was sleeping in a bed right next to her. She didn't know until later how many people were arrested partly because of what she said in her news conference.

But one morning, she woke up and felt almost clearheaded. She looked around the room and saw Katie grinning at her.

"Jessie?" Katie said. "Is that really you, Jessie?"

"Of course," Jessie said. "Come and see for yourself."

Katie shakily climbed out of her bed, wobbled toward Jessie, and crawled in with her.

"I thought you were in a box," Katie said.

"I was?" Jessie said, confused.

Katie nodded. "The nurse called it TV"

"Oh." Jessie suddenly understood. "That was—like a picture. Not real."

"But you moved," Katie said. "You fell down. I thought you were trapped. Then they wouldn't let me watch. They took the box away."

"Oh, Katie," Jessie said. "I'm okay now."

Katie started to cry anyway. "Where are Ma and Pa? No one will tell me." Katie leaned against Jessie and Jessie smoothed her hair.

"I'm sure Ma and Pa will come and get us as soon as they can," Jessie said. But she didn't know what Katie meant. Where were Ma and Pa? Why weren't they watching over Katie and Jessie?

"Who takes care of us?" Jessie asked.

"Nurses and doctors. They're nice," Katie said. "But I want Ma."

"I know." Jessie wasn't sure how much else she could ask without scaring Katie. "Have you seen anyone else?"

"Hannah and Andrew and Nathan and Bartholomew and almost everyone from school," Katie said.

So all the Clifton children were in the hospital. But where were the adults?

A few days later, when Jessie could stay awake longer, the nurses said she could see two more of her siblings. Jessie chose Hannah and Andrew.

They came into her room in strange chairs with wheels on the side. They looked odd without their usual Clifton clothes. Like Jessie and Katie, they both wore gowns that tied in the back.

"Look—I can do races in this," Andrew bragged, spinning his wheels quickly. But Jessie saw that after only a few spins he sat back in his chair exhausted. Did Jessie look as pale and sickly as her brother and sister?

"Do you know where Ma and Pa are?" Jessie asked.

Hannah and Andrew exchanged glances.

"No," Hannah said. "All we know is that this is really 1996, and there's something wrong with Clifton. No one will tell us anything else. They just ask us questions."

"Tell her the bad news, too," Andrew said gruffly.

Hannah nodded.

"Jessie—Abby and Jefferson died."

Jessie turned away. So she had failed to get help in time, after all. She blinked back tears.

Hannah rolled her chair beside Jessie's bed.

"Jessie? I know you went and got help and you saved all the rest of us, so you shouldn't feel too bad—"

"Oh, shut up," Andrew said roughly. He rolled his chair back. Jefferson had been one of Andrew's best friends, but Jessie knew Andrew wouldn't let his sisters see him cry. Andrew gulped and said in a forced voice, "Don't you want to hear what you missed? With the guns and sirens and all?"

It seemed that two days after Jessie got sick—"or you didn't really get sick then, did you?" Hannah said—Mr. Seward had suddenly rushed into the schoolhouse just before lunch.

"He had his big rifle, and he was waving it around saying no one would get hurt if we didn't move," Hannah said matter-of-factly.

Jessie was amazed at how calm she sounded, considering what a coward Hannah normally was.

"Why'd he do that?" Jessie asked.

"We didn't know then," Andrew said. "We thought he was crazy. But it was because of you."

Andrew and Hannah took a long time to explain, but eventually Jessie understood: After the news conference, all the reporters started calling Mr. Clifton and the board of health. Then the board of health called, demanding to be let in, and Mr. Clifton's men got desperate. Mr. Seward took over the schoolhouse, hoping to keep the health officials out.

"But why?" Jessie asked. "Why didn't they want the sick children to get medicine?"

"That's one of the things no one will tell us," Andrew said. "Now, shut up. We're almost to the good part."

Mr. Seward kept pointing his rifle at the children, Andrew said. Mr. Seward let Mr. Smythe leave, and the children thought he'd go for help. Instead, he came back with another gun.

"He was on the bad side all along," Andrew said.

Jessie was glad she'd never liked Mr. Smythe.

The schoolhouse was hot, but Mr. Seward wouldn't let anyone go out to the well for a drink. He didn't let them leave for anything.

"Not even the outhouse," Hannah said.

The children could hear shouting outside—voices they knew, like Mr. Wittingham's and Mr. Ruddle's, trying to convince Mr. Seward to give up. Then those voices stopped and there were others they didn't recognize, unnaturally loud.

" This is the Indiana State Police,' " Andrew imitated in a deep voice. " 'Come out immediately and you won't be harmed.' They had something called a bullhorn, Jessie. Do you know where I can get one?"

Jessie shook her head.

"Weren't you all scared?" she asked.

"Sure," Andrew said. "The girls cried. That's all you could hear—sniff, sniff, sniff."

"Not all of us cried," Hannah corrected. "And some boys did, too. The little ones."

"That's true," Andrew agreed, more charitable than usual.

From the shouting, and from peeking outside, the children could tell there were lots of men surrounding the school. They wore strange clothes none of the children had ever seen before: dark shirts and pants, with shiny helmets. Mr. Seward started sweating a lot, but he wouldn't answer the men outside. Then suddenly he rushed to one of the windows.

"Go away!" he screamed. "Or I'll shoot them all!"

He ducked back away from the window before they could shoot him. And that's when it happened.

"Tell her," Andrew said to Hannah. Jessie was surprised at the note of admiration in his voice. Andrew usually didn't have much use for Hannah.

Hannah looked down demurely.

"I tripped him."

Mr. Seward fell hard—"Because he's the fattest man in Clifton, you know," Andrew said. The rifle clattered across the floor. Mr. Seward lunged to grab it back. For a terrible moment, it seemed he would. Several of the biggest boys tried to reach it first, and it spun crazily on the floor. Then Chester Seward emerged with the rifle firm in his grasp.

"Good, son," Mr. Seward said. "Hand it over to Pa."

"No," Chester said. "You'll hurt Hannah."

He pointed the gun at Mr. Seward, forgetting Mr. Smythe had a gun, too. But Mr. Smythe took one look at Chester, dropped his rifle, and ran out of the school. The children could hear him yelling, "It wasn't me! It wasn't me!"

Holding the rifle at Mr. Seward's back, Chester walked him out of the school.

"That was the last time we saw Mr. Seward," Andrew said. "Or any of the other grown-ups. The ambulances came—you

should have heard these things they have, sirens—and they brought all us children here. Even the ones who weren't sick. The nurses said we all had to be under observation." Jessie was still amazed by an earlier part of the story. "So Chester liked you after all?" she asked Hannah. "Yes," Hannah said, smiling softly. "Yu-uck," Andrew said.

"And you really tripped Mr. Seward?" Jessie couldn't believe it. "You were that brave?" Hannah shook her head.

"No. I just kept thinking that you would have been brave enough to do it, and you weren't there, so . . ." Jessie started laughing, hard. "What's so funny?" Hannah sounded hurt. "When I was leaving Clifton, I tried to be cautious like you!"

They all laughed. Hannah looked a little proud. "So what was that like, your trip?" Andrew asked. Jessie wanted to brag about her own bravery, but something stopped her. "Scary," she said.

In fact, though she didn't tell Andrew and Hannah, she still felt scared even now.